Copernicus Compact Curiosities- 12.10.08

I think i’ve found the perfect stocking stuffer for kids!!! Or it’s what i’ll be resorting to when i need random little gifts, that are not only really fun and amusing but educational and awesomely packaged! Copernicus Toys is a wondrous playground of all the fun sciencey toys and gizmos and puzzles i loved as a kid, and they’ve recently launched this great line of Compact Curiosities! Adorable packaging ~ nice clean fonts/graphics/colored labels on the translucent 4x6” pouches… definite points for the shiny object factor…

And it gets better! Inside these packets are old favorites from Monster Balloons and Vortex devices (you know, the ones you put between two 1L soda bottles!) to dissectable Owl Pellets and Geodes to crack open! Also incredibly affordable ranging from 3$-12$ (most are 3$-6$)! See closeups of the whole line on the next page!

And really ~ beyond this new line, Copernicus Toys has so much stuff from my childhood that has gotten me all excited again! From the cow in a can and metal puzzles, to what looks exactly like my first microscope, parachuting men, frisbees, metal puzzles, newton’s cradle, gyroscopes, hand boilers, and more! So much fun ~ check out their pdf catalog for easiest browsing.

UPDATE! Here are scans of the packaging for the ones we got ~ Looks like the final packaging got a bit more color and some graphical updates!

4 Notes

Really informative!!!!!!! i want a ‘Monster Balloon’ and I’m really young! Please do more, stumbled onto your site while looking for information about the scientist Copernicus and will certainly come back! :]

I forgot to ask—does anybody remember “Klutz Press”? They made books for children like “Dollar bill origami - instant rebate”, which came with a crisp new one dollar bill. I loved the book on magic.

Klutz had a catalogue in which you could order their other books and accessories—I still remember the texture of the catalogue—like the old issues of “Paste” magazine—so tactile and fun! Anyway, they had these giant balloons, over three feet long. It used to take me an hour to blow one up, and I became very dizzy during the process, but it was all worth it. $10, which is a lot when you are eight years old, bought you three balloons. I used to imagine filling them up with helium and have them lift me into space (I wanted to be an astronaut).

Just wondering if anybody else remembers these. Better yet, does anybody know where to get some? Maybe the Compact Curiosities balloon is the same.

I love this packaging—it reminds me of some beautifully creative packaging we use here in Chicago for tea. A local chain of tea shops called Argo tea uses a similar style to keep their leaf-tea fresh on the shelf. Check them out at argotea.com — You can see the packages on the site (it’s flash or something so I can’t paste the link). Go to “Shop”, then to “Tea Sampler Sets”, and give your eyes a treat.

As for the graphics, it reminds me of a local coffee shop, similar to Argo, called Intelligentsia. See http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/store/coffee/5-pound/house for an example. (Can anybody tell me how to make links on this comment box?!). In general Intelligentsia does a wonderful job with their logos and graphics, and the color palettes are very fashion-forward. Take a gander.